You can use this page to convert some text, such as a story,
article or poem, into any of 5 reformed spelling systems.

Converter Input

You can enter text to be converted in one of three ways. You can type the
text in directly to the text entry box below. You can paste text from
another window on your computer into the text entry box. Or you can
upload a file from your computer's hard disk for conversion.

If you upload a file, the file must be a text file (.txt) or an
HTML file (.htm or .html). Other kinds of files, including
Word files (.doc) or PDF files (.pdf) will either be
rejected by the converter, or will produce nonsensical output.

Please do not abuse the converter by asking it to convert extremely large
files or binary files.

Converter Output

The converter output is displayed as a web page. You can use your
browser's Save As function to make a copy of the page. The page has two
parts: first, a description of any problems encountered by the converter
and then the actual converted text. If you save a copy of the page, you
can use Microsoft Word or any other program capable of editing HTML to
remove all text other than the converted text.

The Wyrdplay converter is not perfect. For some words, the converter will
be unsure of the correct output. Words like this will be flagged
in the converted output, so they can easily be found and edited if you
save the results.

The conversion is based on a dictionary of pronunciations. It is
possible that you may pronounce some words differently than shown in the
dictionary, and so would write them differently yourself. Such
differences should not be regarded as errors in conversion. If there are
any such differences in output you save, you are free to edit the results
to indicate pronunciations you believe to be more correct.

In addition to the likelihood that there will be some words that cannot
be converted properly, it is unfortunately possible that the converter
could simply fail due to a programming error. If this happens, instead
of converted output, your browser will display some error messages in
programming jargon. If this should happen to you, please send the error
report and a copy of your input file to Alan Beale (Alan at wyrdplay.org)
for analysis.

In the first part of the converter's output, before the actual converted
text, you will see up to three lists of words which gave the converter
trouble.

The first possible list you may see is a list of unknown words.
These are words which do not appear in the converter's dictionary.
Usually, these words are proper names. In the converted file, any
unknown word is left unchanged, and is surrounded by red vertical
bars, like |this|,
so that you can edit it if you wish.

The second list you may see is a list of ambiguous words. These
are words which can be converted in more than one way, or words
where the program (which does not understand English grammar) is
not certain of the correct conversion. The word tear is an
example of the first sort of word. The converter cannot tell if
you mean the verb tear (spelled ter or tair in some reformed spellings)
or the noun tear (spelled tir or teer in some reformed spellings).

A different kind of ambiguous word is the word hoped. The
converter is not sure if this is the past tense of hope or
of hop. It may seem obvious to you which is correct, but the
converter knows there are words like worship and counsel
where a final consonant is not doubled in the past tense.

In either of these cases, the converter makes a list of all the
possible ways the word could be converted, and encloses the list in
red braces to catch your attention. The two examples above would
be displayed as: {teer|tair} and {hopt|hoept}

The third list of words which you may see is a list of uppercase
words. These words might be ordinary words that have been uppercased
for emphasis (HELP!), or they might be acronyms like US
or IRA. In some cases, the conversion of an acronym
might not be suitable. For instance, if the acronym IRA were
converted as the proper name Ira, the spelling
IERUH
would be misleading.

When the converter encounters an uppercase word like this, it
assumes it has been uppercased for emphasis, and converts it
normally. If there are any words on the list for which this is
not appropriate, you can edit the output yourself after
saving it.

Running the Converter

Enter the text to convert

Or supply the name of a text or HTML file to convert

Select the target spelling system.

Notes on the Conversions

Bobdot

See this page
for information on Bobdot. Bobdot calls for the use of "citation pronunciation".
The dictionary used by the converter does not yet represent all words in this
form, and so you may see some deviations from correct Bobdot in its output.

DRE

See this page
for information on DRE.
The converter produces strict DRE, which uses many more diacritics
than reduced DRE. Reduced DRE allows accents to be left out when the
pronunciation is obvious.

Portul

See this page
for information on Portul. The converter generates Portul-oo. See the Portul
page for how this form differs from other versions of Portul.

Rifaurmd Lojikl Inglish

See this page
for information on Rifaurmed Lojikl Inglish.
Rifaurmed Lojikl Inglish is a modified form of Rollo Reid's Lojikl Inglish
system, described here.
The converter output for RLI represents American English. A future
version of the converter may support conversion to authentic Lojikl Inglish
representing British pronunciation.